Last week, the 50 Best organization announced its list of the top bars in North America. Now in its fourth year (though, globally, the group has been awarding restaurants since 2002 and bars since 2009), the annual ranking has a lot of eyes on it—and some critics.
When we checked in last year, industry attendees at the awards ceremony had mixed feelings. Some found the list important and validating, while others felt they prioritized certain kinds of bars—those with PR teams, namely—and one anonymous attendee said the awards “tend to be a little bit of a circle jerk.” In the past, 50 Best has also received criticism related to sexism (which is one reason that the voting body now comprises “a 50/50 gender split”) and preferential treatment.
Those who have made the list say they have felt meaningful, material impacts from being awarded. “Even though we’ve always believed we were in the caliber, external recognition wasn’t always our primary goal,” says Nicolas Torres, owner of San Francisco’s True Laurel, No. 17 on this year’s list. “These systems do tend to drive good foot traffic, and that matters. At the end of the day, we have people to take care of—our team and our guests. This is the system we’ve all, in some way, agreed to participate in. We need new people constantly discovering what we do, right alongside our regulars, and something like 50 Best certainly helps facilitate that.” For Max Reis, beverage director of Mírate (No. 12), the benefits that come from recognition enable the bar to continue supporting others. “We support families and producers in Mexico as directly as you can in my field,” he says, “and this just means we get even more ability to support and momentum to continue to do so.”
This year, the nominators comprised one-third bartenders and bar owners, one-third drinks writers and educators and one-third “well-travelled cocktail experts.” As for criteria, there aren’t many. Each voter (there are more than 300) is asked to name up to seven bars where they have had their “best experience” in the past 18 months, and a maximum of five of those bars can be in a voter’s home country (for those outside of the U.S.) or home state (for those in the U.S.). The list comes with accompanying Individual Awards, though not every bar that received one of these made the top 50.
But what does it take to be a 50 Best bar? We ran the numbers, looking at every entry on the list in consideration of various factors: location, drink prices, social media following, years open and more. We looked at how many bars take reservations, how many have a centrifuge or rotovap, how many were new to the list compared with how many were veterans—and we compiled all that data to see what it really takes to be awarded one of the coveted spots.
More than half of the awarded bars (54 percent) are in the U.S., followed by 28 percent in Mexico, 16 percent in Canada and 2 percent in the Cayman Islands. The most popular city represented on the list is New York City, followed by Mexico City, Chicago and Toronto.
Only eight bars on the list are new to 50 Best. Last year, Los Angeles bar Mírate was No. 46. This year, it’s No. 12, jumping 34 places in the list (the biggest shift from 2024 to now). Asked how the bar has changed in the past year, beverage director Max Reis says the team “honed in and developed our voice as a bar—same tonality, but clearer and louder.”
Also making big moves: New York’s Katana Kitten and Dante, which dropped by 30 and 26 spots, respectively, Café de Nadie in Mexico City (-30) and Best Intentions in Chicago (+23). On average, most bars moved around nine places.
Last year, Sother Teague of Amor y Amargo, which opened in 2011, told Punch, “I’ve been on [the list] as high as No. 23 [in 2022] and then I haven’t been on the list at all since then… I do see that many of the new bars that open and that have money behind them and PR behind them, they do come screaming outta the gate with a lot of sizzle and not as much steak.” So, does newness matter? On this year’s list, six bars (12 percent) opened in 2024, and 22 bars (44 percent) opened in the 2020s. The oldest bar on the list, Employees Only (No. 18), opened in 2004—unless you count Angel’s Share, whose original location opened in 1994, while the new iteration opened in 2023. But perhaps most interesting—especially for a list capturing the past 18 months—is the newest: Bar Mauro, at No. 14, opened very recently, in November 2024.
The top bars on the list also tend to have larger social media followings, although it can be a bit of a chicken-or-egg situation. For example, the No. 1 bar this year, Handshake Speakeasy, also has the highest number of followers on Instagram, around 159,000, though it’s fair to assume that a lot of that following came from topping the list last year. Still, the average follower count for the top 10 on the list (54,100) is higher than the average of the full list of 50 (38,920).
Also, 52 percent of bars on the list have been covered by Punch.
As Eater reported a few years ago, “spontaneity is officially dead” at the hottest bars. We found this to be true, to an extent, at most of the 50 Best: 52 percent take reservations, and on a recent Friday when our team tried to secure seats for a party of two that same night, only eight (about 31 percent) of those had availability. As for the reservation platform of choice, 13 bars use Resy, nine use OpenTable, two use CoverManager, one uses SevenRooms and one takes reservations over the phone.
At least one bar on the list, Double Chicken Please (No. 19), has reported issues with bots snatching up reservations; on a reservations brokerage site (it sounds as dystopian as it is), owner GN Chan saw seats selling for $340.
We looked at a total of 43 bars’ menus. For those whose menus were not publicly available, we reached out for digital copies. Five bars did not respond, and two bars (Civil Liberties in Toronto, No. 21, and Cloakroom in Montreal, No. 31) don’t have set menus.
One of the, if not the most, expensive drinks you can get at a 50 Best Bar is at Library by the Sea, in Grand Cayman. The Three Musketeers is described as a mix of brandys, bourbon, rum, amari and liqueurs from the 19th and 20th centuries, and it will run you 690 Cayman dollars, or about $829 USD. The most affordable drinks (not including mini or N/A cocktails) are around $8, at several bars.
We also reached out to top bars on the list to learn more about their bestselling drinks. At Superbueno, No. 2 on the list, the Vodka y Soda still reigns supreme. Tlecan, No. 3, says the Pulque Colada (a coconut-washed version of the drink made with fermented agave sap) is most popular, while Jewel of the South (No. 4) is selling lots of the Jewel Sazerac. Sip & Guzzle (No. 5) reports the Yuzu Mugirita (a shochu-based take on the Margarita), Miami Vice Negroni and Tomato Tree (a floral gin cocktail) are tied as bestsellers.
Also trending: Coladas of all sorts, from the aforementioned Pulque Colada to the Absinthe Colada at Maison Premiere (No. 33) and Negroni Piña Colada at Clemente Bar (No. 11), as well as high-tech cocktails—at least 26 percent of bars on this list appear to have a centrifuge or a rotovap.
Disclosure: Some Punch contributors are part of the voting body for the 50 Best Bar awards.
